The Manohar Lal Khattar Government in Haryana, on the first day of last and fifth Budget session of State Assembly on Wednesday, used the customary Governor’s address, in an election year to highlight its achievements over the last four-and-a-half years and its resolve to continue the populist measures in the state.
During his maiden address to the State Assembly, the Governor Satyadeo Narain Arya highlighted the Haryana Government’s success in fighting corruption, addressing farmers’ woes, sanitation, employment, health, women and child development, transport among other sectors.
A buoyant BJP, after its recent victories in Jind bypoll and municipal polls in five cities in Haryana, through the Governor’s address, also conveyed that these victories are the vindication of Haryana Government’ policies and principle of Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas.
The 79-year-old Satyadeo did not read the entire text of his customary address that ran into 44 pages. He just read first six paras and then the last para of his address, while urging the members of the House to treat the speech ‘as read’ by him.
With an eye on ensuing Lok Sabha polls and state assembly polls scheduled to be held later this year, the Haryana Government through the Governor address, announced to grant an amount of Rs 2 crore for each assembly constituency every year under the Vidhayak Adarsh Gram Yojana, reiterated its commitment to construct Sutlej Yamuna Link canal, six more metro projects, procurement of 100 HVAC buses (pink express) under Nirbhaya Fund scheme among other development projects.
Under fire from the opposition on the issue of unemployment in the state, the State Government has claimed to provide government job to 56000 young men and women and stated that the recruitment process for close to 17000 posts is in the final phase.
The Governor’s speech also mentioned that more than 7.73 lakh job seekers have been registered with the Employment Exchange as on November 2018. 16332 unemployment youth have been employed as cab drivers under MoU with OLA and UBER and 466 employed as security guards under Saksham Haryana campaign. Apart from this, 26537 job seekers have been placed by various private organizations through job fairs till December 2018, it stated.
The State Government has taken conscious and concrete measures to absorb youths in jobs, both in government and private sector, skill them to make them employable, and provided unemployment allowance to the jobless, the Governor said.
Referring to the issue of law and order situation, the Governor mentioned government’s commitment of establishing 30 additional new women police stations in all the districts of the state and 30 creches in each women police station.
The Governor’s address however did not make any mention of crime situation in the state and only focused on recruitment of policemen and initiatives like Mitr Kaksh, Haryana Dial 100, Durga Shakti App among others.
Notably, the BJP led State Government during its tenure has faced severe criticism from the opposition over the law and order situation. Jat reservation agitation 2016, Rampal incident 2014, Dera violence at Panchkula and other parts of Haryana in 2017, cases of brutal rape and murder have led to major embarrassment to the Haryana Government in the last four-and-a-half years.
On the issue of farmers’ welfare, the Governor said that his government is well on way to achieving the distinction of becoming the first state to disburse first quarterly installment of Rs 2000 to each of the ten-and-a-half lakh small and marginal farmer families under the newly launched Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojna.
Reiterating commitment of his government to the construction of SYL canal, the Governor also said that the State Government is simultaneously pursuing for the construction of up-stream storage dams namely, Renuka, Kishau and Lakhwar on river Yamuna, for getting assured water supply to Haryana by better utilization of flood waters of river Yamuna and its tributaries.
“Our state will get 47.81 per cent share of total water storage from these dam projects after their completion”, he added.
The Governor also patted the back of his government over the issues of achieving ODF free status for both rural and urban Haryana, implementation of Ayushmaan Bharat, success of BBBP with gender ratio recorded at 914 in 2018 among other achievements and appreciated the efforts of the House in maintaining traditions of democracy despite political differences.
Meanwhile, the opposition—Congress and Indian National Lok Dal—have termed the Governor’s address as “directionless and a “bundle of lies”.